Nightmare

by Robin Parrish

  To my great relief, it occurred to me that Dr. Eccleston had shown no interest in my and Derek's possibly crazed musings on the mechanics of fashioning a ghost. He'd heard everything we'd said, of course, but remained far more interested in the origins of the combined symbol, and promised to let us know if he discovered anything more about it.

  I returned to Jill's room and passed out almost the second my head hit the pillow.

  It was after four in the morning when I woke up. Someone was shaking me by the shoulders.

  "Maia!" the voice shouted.

  I opened my eyes reluctantly, unwilling to give up my rest. Jill was leaning over me with her hands on my shoulders.

  "You were screaming," she said with a worried expression. "Were you dreaming about what happened to you the other night?"

  My head was still swimming in the dream I'd been having, which was definitely not a dream about the attack I'd suffered in my dorm room a couple nights ago. I sat up slowly.

  "Yeah," I lied. "Just a bad dream. Don't worry about it. Sorry I woke you."

  Whatever last vestiges of sleep that pulled at my mind were erased as I realized that my sleeping bag was stuck to me, because I was covered in sweat.

  As I lay back down and smiled reassuringly at Jill, my heart skipped a beat as my mind revisited my dream in vivid detail. In it, I was alone in a murky, empty place, running in abject terror from a dark, terrifying figure that was uttering a single phrase, over and over.

  I ran a shaking hand through my hair when I was sure Jill was no longer watching me.

  The nightmare is coming, the phrase passed through my mind, like fingernails on a chalkboard.

  The nightmare is coming true.

  MARCH 7TH

  Docked in its own dedicated harbor off of Cape Fear River in Wilmington, North Carolina, the USS North Carolina was a great metallic beast of a ship. The old warhorse did not welcome our arrival; her one hundred thirty-seven cannons and guns were a harsh, threatening reminder of just how intimidating this vessel had been in her day. Much of the seven hundred twenty-eight feet of her gray hull and her enormous towers loomed high over the shoreline, and those cannons on the deck were pointed outward in an unspoken warning.

  Her teeth were bared as our car neared the welcome center. But she didn't smile.

  The ship was visible long before we got close to her, and Jordin whistled at the sight. I told her what I knew of her history while we approached the visitors center, and she took copious notes. She grew very hushed when I warned her about the small, confined spaces we would find inside the ship; I'm sure I saw her swallow. But I was genuinely happy to be there.

  This was going to be a special treat. The USS North Carolina had always been one of my favorite places to explore, having investigated it on four separate occasions with my parents. It was more than just the ship-there was a dear friend I was looking forward to seeing here, as well.

  I'd really stacked the deck for this investigation, knowing it would be the final stop on our week-long trip through the South. I'd used my connections to get special permission for us to roam far outside the visitors' tour, so we could explore every nook and cranny at will.

  "It was only in service for six years...." Jordin mused as I continued my rundown of the ship's past. "So how many people died on board?"

  "Only ten are on record. But the ship was a part of every major naval offensive of World War II. And she survived. So I suppose you could say death has surrounded her since her birth," I said in a quiet voice.

  Good grief, Maia. Over the course of all this, I'd somehow turned into a hackneyed tour guide, getting my kicks by giving goose bumps to sightseers.

  And it actually annoyed me thatJordin kept referring to the ship as "it" instead of "her." I knew it was stupid, but it just got under my skin.

  The sun was beginning to set behind an overcast sky as we parked in the tourist lot adjacent to the dock and began the long trek through the gigantic visitors center and across the causeway that ran out across the water to the ship. Our hands were full of duffel bags and backpacks, because I'd insisted that we bring along every piece of investigative equipment we had. I'd even talked Jordin into stopping at an electronics shop and buying a slew of new digital video cameras so we could disperse them throughout the ship.

  And I was interested in putting the new equipment to use, but truth be told, I also hoped that the extra "eyes" would minimize our need to move around so much during the trip. I'd done everything I could over the last two days to shove thoughts of my weak heart aside, but it was always there, lingering on the edge of my mind. It was the last thing I thought of before sleeping at night and the first thing to come to mind in the morning. I just couldn't escape it.

  There would be time to get fully checked over when we got back to New York. For now, I had one more investigation to conduct. I'd just need to try and keep from overexerting myself. It was a perfect time to let Jordin step up to the plate a little more.

  She had really surprised me this week. Jordin's annoying enthusiasm never wavered, but neither did her dedication. And she had proven to have solid instincts, which was one of the most useful tools a paranormal investigator could have.

  "What is that?" she asked, looking out over the edge of the bridge into the river.

  "Alligator," I replied with a glance.

  She recoiled slightly. I think the idea of spending the night in the claustrophobic spaces onboard the ship suddenly sounded better than staying outside.

  We were met at the far side of the causeway by Carl Swift, an elderly gentleman in a navy dress uniform. Though it wasn't the first time I'd seen his medals, I couldn't help but allow my focus to slide down his chest to land on the purple heart affixed there beneath a dozen other badges and medals.

  "Maia!" he shouted, though I was only a few feet away. He was a kind man with a big heart, but an old-school navy man, too, who tried his best not to show too much emotion. I'd known him for ages, and he felt like part of my family-only with none of the baggage. "Good to see you, young lady, good to see you! How are Malcolm and Carmen?"

  "They're great," I said with a grin and forced him into a bear hug. I really adored Carl. "They send their best, and promise to come back to shoot a new episode for next season. Apparently there have been quite a few fan requests for another investigation here."

  "Well, what do you know about that," he said in a conspiratorial tone. It was the closest Carl ever got to sounding playful. If he'd been anyone else, he would have been winking and smiling at me right now. And I knew why: those "fan requests" had probably been arranged by the old codger himself.

  "This is Jordin, the one who asked for the private tour," I said. It was only partly true, since Jordin had had no idea what our three destinations would be on this trip, but she had asked to visit the most haunted places I could come up with. I had to stroke Carl's ego a bit, because he was so proud of the North Carolina that my parents called her his mistress. Which might as well have been true since he was unmarried and actually lived in a stateroom on the ship as her primary curator and historian.

  He offered a tight-lipped smile. "Pleasure to meet you, miss," he said, extending his leathery hand. "Just listen to Maia tonight and be extra careful while you two are poking around. She's a smart one, this girl." He put his arm around me as if to emphasize his point.

  She offered a captivating smile in return, no doubt giving the old man a little flirting for what she thought was his concern for our safety. But it wasn't our safety he was worried about. He just didn't want us breaking anything on board.

  "And if you get anything good, I expect you'll get me a copy, young lady," he said, turning back to me. It was the same arrangement as with my parents; we could investigate, but always had to provide a copy of any ghostly audio or imagery we captured. The tourists who visited the ship just loved that stuff. The Battleship Commission, the group that owned and oversaw the ship, had even begun giving monthly "haunted tours" based on the growing numbe
r of paranormal enthusiasts who'd begun making inquiries.

  I nodded and reassured him that the agreement between him and my family still stood.

  Carl was about to take his leave when he stepped forward as if about to impart some great secret that only the two of us should hear. "You both take great care belowdecks," he said. "A lot of strange things have been happening lately-even more than usual. See that you don't lose your heads."

  As he walked away back along the bridge that led back to shore, Jordin asked, "He didn't mean that literally, did he?"

  It was long into the night before things got interesting. We spent over an hour placing our newly acquired high-def/low- light cameras in eight paranormal hot spots all over the ship. They were motion-sensitive, so they would only record if they detected movement.

  Then we set up our sleeping bags and other essentials in crew quarters just off the main deck. We'd planned to set up our little home base out on the deck itself and enjoy the cool night air, but the threat of rain changed our minds.

  Our tour began in the boiler room, deep belowdecks. The most interesting areas of the ship were naturally the ones that were hardest to access, but I decided it would be easiest-especially for my health needs-to start at the bottom and work our way up, so we wouldn't have to backtrack, and we'd end the night back in our crew quarters.

  Having barely set foot through the hatch to the boiler room, we both nearly gagged.

  "Oh man! "Jordin moaned, trying to cover her nose. "It smells like an outhouse down here!"

  The pungent odor was strong and offensive, and it saturated our sinuses. I suggested we take a look around, see if maybe an animal had found its way down there and left a little something behind. But ten minutes of shining our flashlights into every corner turned up nothing but pristine steel catwalks. Nothing else happened in the boiler room, but the smell was so strong it seemed to follow us as we left.

  "I feel like I need a shower," Jordin said.

  I didn't want to be a wimp and say it out loud, but I'd been thinking the same thing. The smell had left me feeling completely soiled.

  We trudged on.

  We were up in the mess hall when we picked up cold spots all around the room. I had brought along a handheld temperature meter I still had from the old days, and discovered a handful of spots twenty or even thirty degrees cooler than the rest of the room. And they weren't moving. In my mind's eye I could almost see the residual ghosts of navy crewmen sitting at the old tables and eating their meals.

  "Okay, I have a question," said Jordin softly.

  "Shoot."

  "The shadow person we saw the other night was hot. He showed up as a heat source on the thermal camera. So why are these-whatever they are-so cold?"

  I had no answer for her. It was one of the many mysteries of the paranormal. Sometimes ghosts were hot, sometimes they were cold. I'd heard theories about temperature being related to temperament, where the entity's light or dark character could affect how they manifested. But as with everything else, there was a frustrating lack of hard facts on the matter.

  One of the spots literally gave us a charge.

  I was feeling the cool air in a cold spot at one of the tables when I suddenly yanked my hand away. "Whoa. Hey, come here. You gotta feel this."

  Jordin, who had been across the room doing EVP work, came over quickly and looked as I pointed at the empty cold space. "This one's different. Put your hand in there."

  She obediently stretched her hand out and felt the air where I showed her. Nothing happened at first, but then she pulled back with a start. "Ow!" she said, but then stuck her hand out again. "Oh wow..."

  "I know!"

  "Is that ... ? It almost feels like static electricity," she observed. "You ever encountered this before?"

  I nodded. "Just once. It's a very rare phenomenon, from what I understand. My dad told me that sometimes positively charged ions are found in certain cold spots. It feels like a weak electrical current in the air. Dad said it was almost certainly a sign of an intelligent haunt."

  "Wow ..." Jordin took out her digital camera and snapped several shots of the cold spot while I talked. She held out her digital recorder and asked several questions, like "What's your name?" and "Did you die on the ship?"

  I snapped my head around quickly, looking into the far corner of the room.

  Jordin spun as fast as I had, searching. "What?"

  "I guess it was nothing," I said. "I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye."

  But there was nothing there. I couldn't help wondering if this heart thing was making me paranoid.

  For a few hours, we wandered through the onboard hospital, the machine shop, a rec room. We scanned for EVPs and took plenty ofvideo, but the old ship seemed quiet tonight. I wondered if we'd finally found ourselves a haunted site where the deceased just weren't in the mood to come out and play.

  We passed by a set of stairs leading back down into the ship's bowels when Jordin screamed. I spun to see her land on her back.

  I ran over and knelt down. "What happened? You okay?"

  She looked up at me, startled and confused. "That wasn't you?"

  "I was in front of you, Jordin." I helped her up to a sitting position. "What happened?"

  Her mouth hung open, and she leaned around me to look down the corridor ahead. Her complexion was paler than I'd ever seen it.

  "Somebody-something knocked me down," she hissed. "Like, shoved me out of the way!"

  My eyebrows went up at this and my heart thumped, but I was careful to take deep breaths to keep calm. "Did you feel a hand push you, or was it something else?"

  Jordin glanced down the hall again, searching for the words. "It was just like somebody was running down this hall, and I was in their way, so they kind of... pushed past me. It might have been shoulder first, I don't know...."

  I saw it again. In my peripheral vision, something dark moved. My head spun in its direction, and my eyes landed on the stairs going down.

  The sound of shoes on metal reverberated up the stairs, and then came to us from farther away.

  Okay. This was too good to be true. Which meant it couldn't be.

  Somebody was messing with us. Had to be. Someone had snuck onboard the old ship tonight and was having fun at our expense. I pulled out my phone to give Carl an earful about his lackluster security. I had my thumb on the Send button when Jordin jumped to her feet.

  "Listen! It's underneath us!" Jordin whispered. "It's under us right now!"

  Despite my better judgment, I followed her to the stairs, flashlights and cameras in our hands. We paused there, looking and listening, and sure enough, we heard it again. I swept my flashlight back and forth down the stairs but couldn't see anything.

  This was a bad idea. A real person was here trying to play with us. Things could get dangerous very fast. I needed to find a way to keep Jordin from pursuing this, but I didn't want to freak her out by sharing my suspicions that we weren't the only living people on the ship.

  Jordin took a few steps down the stairs.

  "Stop, what are you doing?" I asked.

  "Going toward the stuff other people run away from," she quipped and continued down the stairs.

  "Jordin, I don't have a good feeling about this," I whispered. "I think we should call it a night."

  "Something's playing with us, Maia." Her expression told me what she thought of my desire to leave. "It's intelligent and it knows we're here, and it's all but invited us to follow it. This may be our best chance of getting solid evidence tonight. Isn't this exactly what we're here for?"

  She turned and continued to the bottom of the stairs, and then disappeared down a corridor.

  It was too late now. My heart was thudding madly, and though I was trying to keep my composure, I was sure I felt it skip a beat or two.

  So I ran. I caught up with Jordin and we chased it down a long corridor and then stopped, listening. We heard it again down another set of stairs to our right, and we wen
t again. There was no sign of it at the far end of the next hallway, so we froze, repeating the pattern of listening for signs of its presence and scanning the area with our flashlights.

  I took deep breaths, clearing my mind and trying with all my might to relax, to force my heart to calm itself. In all likelihood, we were just chasing some punk kid who would later be having a lot of laughs with his buddies over the two girls he scared in the middle of the night.

  I looked into a large room to our right marked "Post Office," and against the far wall I saw something dash impossibly fast to the left, and out of sight. I couldn't tell for sure what it was-it wasn't quite black enough to be a shadow person, and I think it might have had some detail and definition to its form.

  But it moved much too fast to be a living, breathing person.

  The sight of it sent my heart into random sputters. It forced me to double over.

  "I saw it! In there!" I gasped, pointing to the words "Post Office" that were now over my own head.

  Jordin-who seemed to think I was just out of breath-stepped past me into the large room, flashlight raised in one hand and video camera in the other. "We know you're here," she said in a nonthreatening voice. "Could you please talk to us?"

  I was having trouble breathing, barely aware of what Jordin was doing, and sank down to my knees. I clutched at my chest and rubbed the beads of cold sweat from my forehead. My heart was pounding so fast it actually made my rib cage hurt with each strike. I backed up against the bulkhead, still in the hallway outside the room Jordin had chased the apparition into, and lowered myself slowly to the ground.

  "I see it!"Jordin hissed in my direction, still inside the post office. "It's running, Maia, come on!"

  "No!" I called out. "I can't-I need to go back!"

  "Are you nuts!" Jordin didn't even bother to look back in the room. "We can catch this thing! I just saw it run through another door! Come on, Maia, let's go!"

  "I can't, I need some air," I said, the world spinning around me, barely able to choke out any words. My voice was failing me, as well. "I need..." I croaked.